A 4000-year-old handprint has been discovered on an ancient Egyptian clay model during preparations for an exhibition.
The "rare and exciting" find is on the base of a "soul house" - a clay model in the shape of a building which would have been placed inside a burial tomb.
The model on which the handprint was found has been dated to around 2,055-1,650 BC.
Helen Strudwick, a senior Egyptologist at Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum, believes the complete handprint was probably left by the maker of the item who touched the clay before it fully dried.
She said: "We've spotted traces of fingerprints left in wet varnish or on a coffin in the decoration, but it is rare and exciting to find a complete handprint underneath this soul house."
The soul house would have had an open-fronted space where items of food would have been laid out.
In this case, that was thought to be loaves of bread, a lettuce, and an ox's head.
Researchers believe soul houses may have acted as offering trays which provided a place for the soul of the deceased to live within the tomb.
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|The 4000-year-old handprint was discovered on an ancient Egyptian clay model during preparation for an exhibition
Strudwick, who is also the curator of the museum's new Made in Ancient Egypt exhibition, continued: "I have never seen such a complete handprint on an Egyptian object before.
"You can just imagine the person who made this, picking it up to move it out of the workshop to dry before firing.
"Things like this take you directly to the moment when the object was made and to the person who made it, which is the focus of our exhibition."
Analysis of the object suggests the potter who made it first created a framework of wooden sticks and then coated it with clay to make a two-storey "building" supported by pillars.
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|Researcher Helen Strudwick (pictured) said: 'I have never seen such a complete handprint on an Egyptian object before'
Then, staircases would have been formed by pinching the wet clay into steps.
During the firing process, the wooden framework would have burnt away, leaving empty spaces in its place.
According to researchers, the handprint found underneath the item was likely made when someone, perhaps the potter, moved the house out of the workshop to dry before firing it in a kiln.
Ceramics were widely used in ancient Egypt, mostly as functional objects - but sometimes as more decorative pieces.
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|The 'soul house' will go on display from October 3
The soul house will be on display in the Fitzwilliam's Made in Ancient Egypt exhibition, which will open to the public on October 3.
Last week, researchers solved a grisly ancient Egyptian burial mystery which involved a young girl who had been meticulously cut up and rearranged in a tomb.
Archaeologists now believe it may be the oldest archaeological evidence of the Osiris and Isis mythology.
The girl's remains were pointed towards the sunset of the winter solstice, while her burial chamber faced the point where Sirius rises in the night sky.